Last week I did my ride along with Corporal Mohammed Aslam, whom I will refer to as Mo. I still don't get the hierarchy of positions within the police department, but it is something I can have explained to me today. To get back to the whole ride along experience. I loved it! Mo oddly enough had a lot of questions for me. This ride along was totally different from the last. We talked a lot about religion and moral codes. I learned that Mo was raised a Muslim and that he has been with Foster City PD for 14 years. Although, he and I don't necessarily agree on some aspects of politics, he is such a nice guy.... not to say that people who don't think like me are all deushbags. He told me that he had a lot of doubts about his faith and they were all legitimate doubts. His doubts made me think back on when I realized that God and religion were not for me. I told him that I knew pretty early on and my mind hasn't really changed as I have gotten older like my mom though. I also told him that I studied many many religions before I decided to take the route I did. I told him that my findings were very educational. Like Mo, I find most religions to be very beautiful and very similar at the same time. Of course, when I say most religions, I refer to Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. Anyway, towards the end of the night he ended up wondering if he was an atheist. I knew that that was something that he would have to discover on his own. I thought that I could have easily converted him, but something that I learned when studying other faiths was that respect is something that we could all learn. I respect all faiths and it isn't my duty to to discredit others. I found that from this ride along, I did a lot of self- reflecting.
Anyway, to get to the juicy stuff, I learned what it means to be a beat cop. I learned about the different codes, which I'm still a little rusty at. I also learned how tiny foster city is because circling it for 4 hours can get very dull, which is why I'm glad I had somebody to talk to. Imagine a 4 hour ride around Foster City with nothing to say--- BORING! We did a lot of Welfare checks, where basically what we do is go to that person's home and check to see if they are alive. I learned how hard sometimes officers have it because when they want to check on someone, they have a lot of redtape themselves they have to try to overcome, especially with Apartment buildings. You can't just go to the Property Manager and ask who is living at a residence without a warrant. All of this for a welfare check? Geez! I also learned how awesome Foster City PD is. You can call the police department and ask for an officer to come to your home to answer any questions about the law or how to proceed with sensitive issues. Talk about Full Service! I never want to leave Foster City now.
Mo and I discussed how important it is for people to actually do ride alongs. I mean it totally changes your perception of a police officer and I speak from experience. I told Mo that I used to think that police officers were just a bunch of robots and just did whatever they wanted. Now I understand how human officers are. They can have their own moral code and not necessarily like parts of their job. They have to remain impartial. I don't think I could be a police officer. I can be so passionate about certain issues that I don't know if I would be able to resist it. They really have it tough! I heard a story from Mo... or maybe it was Paul.... where someone was like "I hope your kid dies!" I would have said something like F you! He remained calm enough and said something to the extent of thanks for sharing.
I think I was laughing for most of my ride along. Mo was soooooo funny. I nearly pee'd my pants I was laughing so hard. He told me that most of the ride alongs he's done he wants to get that person out of the car in 5 minutes. I'm happy to hear that I have lasted as long as I have then, haha! I wish that I had decided to do ride alongs earlier on in my teenagehood. I would have had soo much fun. Although, I don't know how I feel about doing a ride a long with LAPD. I guess the only way to change my perception of them is doing a ride along with them too. Although, if they are like San Francisco PD, they probably don't do ride alongs, which is too bad because I think that peoples' perception of a police officer would change there too . I think I did a decent job answering the questions for last week in this post. If I could do it again, (I'm still have 4 weeks of this though) I would do it again. I had no idea that I would have as much fun as I have. The one thing that I liked more about this ride along then the previous one, is that I was a lot more active, meaning I didn't just sit when the officer left his car. Mo invited me to join him on everything. I have to say though, I was asked frequently if I was a police offiver myself and I felt that perhaps lying would have been better than just saying no I'm doing a ride along today. Mo just said I was also affiliated with the Police Department. I couldn't help but be all excited. I don't really know if I would ever pursue a career as a police officer. In the face of danger, I am more of a flight person than fight. For the second half of the semester, I think I could really improve on posting these on time. I find it really hard to be able to express my thoughts in a blog and I'm still not used to the idea. For me, I hate the idea that just anybody could read this. My thoughts are my own and something about a complete stranger reading them is totally unappealing. Anyway, I'm totally stoked about my ride along today. Stay tuned for the details.
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